The authors would like to thank Dr. Merle Hamburger for his review and
critique of the article.

Abstract

Significant
attention has been focused on women’s initiation of sexual contact with
men and the point at which this initiation becomes sexual aggression. The
purpose of this study was to examine possible predictors of the use of
three conceptually distinct sets of sexual initiation tactics: seduction,
coercion, and force. Relationships
between women’s personal characteristics, future expectancies about sex
and relationships, the ‘rehearsal behavior’ of telephone calling patterns
in adolescence, sexual self-esteem, past abuse, and past sexual abuse were
related to measures of women’s sexual initiation and aggression.
Survey respondents were 272, mostly white women students with a mean age
of 26 years. A complex relationship
emerged between predictor and outcome variables.
Social learning theory is utilized to interpret the findings and recommend
future research directions.

Introduction

Women’s
sexual initiation

Sexual
initiation is defined as any acknowledged attempt on the part of the respondent
to establish sexual contact. For more than a decade significant attention
has been focused on the phenomenon of women’s initiation of sexual contact
with men. Studies conducted in the
1980's focused on the incidence and prevalence of women’s sexual initiation,
the impact it had on the male receivers, and women’s reasons for initiating
sexual contact (Anderson, 1990; calderwood*, 1987; Muehlenhard & Cook,
1988; Muehlenhard & Long, 1988; Sarrel & Masters, 1982; Struckman-Johnson,
1988).
Findings from these studies indicatedthat
women participate in a broad range of behaviors, including attempts at
arousing a partner, threats to end a relationship, force, and taking advantage
of someone who is too intoxicated to resist, to accomplish sexual contact
with men. Also, women were reported to initiate sexual contact for a wide
variety of reasons, including arousal, a need to have power and control,
and as a reaction to past abuse.
Finally, prior research supports the contention that nonaggressive and
aggressive sexual initiation tactics differ in prevalence, motive, and
impact. While
research has established the prevalence of a variety of initiatory behavior,
less is known regarding the predictors of such behavior.
To further our understanding of female’s sexual behavior; the
purpose of this study was to test the ability of selected variables to
predict college women’s use of seduction and/or aggression tactics to obtain
sexual contact with a man.

Seductive
(i.e., nonaggressive) tactics include behaviors such as dancing seductively,
wearing specific clothes or perfume, or giving massages. Aggressive
tactics include coercive behaviors such as threats to end a relationship,
lies, or psychological manipulation and physical force tactics such as
hitting, holding someone down, or the threat or use of a weapon.

Researchers
have attempted to broaden their understanding of women’s use of initiation
tactics and specifically the use of aggressive tactics by considering the
role of cultural norms and expectations, and the psychological characteristics
of individuals that promote differences in aggressive and nonaggressive
initiation tactics (Anderson & Sorenson, 1999; Anderson & Aymami,
1993; O’Sullivan & Byers, 1993).
The authors of these studies have reported that among college women in
the US, women living in the South are less aggressive than women in the
East and that women who believe in rape myths and/or hold adversarial beliefs
about relationships are more likely to use aggressive tactics.
Researchers have also made comparisons between the experiences of women
and men as initiators and receivers (Bauserman & Rind, 1997; Greer
& Buss, 1994; McConaghy & Zamir, 1995; Struckman-Johnson &
Struckman-Johnson, 1994) concluding that women are more negatively affected
by receiving sexual aggression. The experiences of men who were sexually
‘assaulted’ (King & Woollett, 1997), or sexually ‘pressured and forced’
(Struckman-Johnson & Struckman-Johnson, 1994) by women have been examined.
These studies highlighted insights into men’s limits of sexual readiness.

Many
researchers have reported women’s sexually aggressive tactics (e.g., Gwartney-Gibbs,
Stockard, & Bohmer, 1987; Poppen & Segal, 1988; Stets & Pirog-Good,
1989) using a measure that combined the use of physical force tactics with
non-force tactics in a single reporting set.
The value of this type of reporting is that it captures all aggressive
acts in a single score and allows for larger cell sizes
for statistical analysis. Since the use of physical force may indicate
a qualitatively different strategy (Lottes & Weinberg, 1997) and a
different experience for the receiver of this type of sexual aggression
(Zweig, Barber, & Eccles, 1997), a drawback of this measuring system
is that it cannot distinguish these differences. In
addition, authors have reported that women are slightly less likely than
men to report using psychologically coercive tactics, but considerably
less likely than men to report using physical force tactics (Christopher,
Madura, & Weaver, 1998). The
differences between women who are willing to use physical force and those
who are not may prove significant.

Variables
related to women’s sexual aggression

Demographics.
Age, marital status (MS), socio-economic status (SES), and ethnicity have
been assessed in several studies of women’s sexual behaviors. Typically,
these variables have been used as population descriptors or screening variables
rather than independent variables (e.g., Anderson,
1990; Lotts & Weinberg, 1996; Struckman-Johnson, 1988). In some cases
(e.g., O’Sullivan, Byers, & Finkelman, 1998), previously reported differences,
based on marital status or other demographics, were not statistically verified.
In other studies, relationship status was demonstrated to relate to women’s
sexual pressure tactics or aggression (Clements-Schreiber, Rempel, &
Desmarais 1998; Lane & Gwartney-Gibbs, 1985; Stets & Priog-Good,
1989). In general, women in committed
relationships were reported to be more likely to use or endorse the use
of pressure tactics or aggression.
In addition, age at first intercourse and numbers of lifetime sexual partners
have been positively
connected to a variety of problem behaviors for young women, including
experiences as sexual aggressors (Leitenberg & Saltzman, 2000; Lotts
& Weinberg, 1997). Therefore,
the variables of greater number of lifetime sexual partners, early age
at first intercourse, older current age, and being currently married or
cohabiting were expected to predict the use of all tactics in this study.

Future
Expectations about Sex and Relationships.
Mental constructs, specifically future expectations, are likely to guide
judgments and behaviors. Whitaker,
Beach, Etherton, Wakefield,
and Anderson (1999), argue
that future expectations guide thoughts,
feelings and behaviors between individuals in a relationship.
In this study, future expectations about sex and relationships were expected
to predict the use of seduction, but not aggression tactics.

Adolescent
Calling Patterns. Anderson,
Arceneaux, Carter, Miller, and King (1995) first documented the shift in
telephone calling patterns of adolescent girls who attended a Southern
urban university in the United States.
The authors reported that women who were adolescents prior to 1964 were
unlikely to call boys and perceived their parents as disapproving if they
did. Those women who were adolescents
between 1964 and 1981 (the transition period) gave mixed responses about
calling and parental approval. Those
women who were adolescents after 1981 called boys and perceived their parents
as approving. Changes in this behavior
for women were attributed to major cultural events and shifts in cultural
norms that would allow women and girls to be more assertive with boys and
men (Anderson, et al., 1995).

For
this study, early age at first call to a boy, calling more different boys,
and making more total calls to boys during adolescence were expected to
predict college women’s use of seduction, but not aggression tactics. These
behaviors are conceptualized by the authors as rehearsal behaviors that
would increase situational self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977b) relative to initiating
social and sexual contact with men. The authors of this study hypothesized
that any increased self-efficacy due to rehearsal may lead to increased
use of seduction tactics, but that there is no evidence to support the
notion that it would lead to increased use of aggression tactics.

Sexual
Self-esteem. Sexual self-esteem,
“... the dispositional tendency to evaluate positively one’s capacity to
relate sexually to others”
(Snell,
Fisher, & Walters, 1993, p. 34) has
been positively correlated with greater sexual awareness, an approach
to relationships that involves mutual concern and caring, and a more varied
history of sexual behavior (Snell, et. al.,).
The findings regarding these attributes lead the authors to hypothesize
that increased sexual self-esteem would lead to increased use of sexual
seduction tactics, but not aggression tactics.

Past
Abuse. The experience of any past abuse (verbal, emotional, or physical)
has been connected with courtship violence among adolescent women (Tontodonato
& Crew, 1992). Stets and Pirog-Good
(1989), addressed past experiences with abuse, self-esteem, acceptance
of violence, relationship involvement, and the need for interpersonal control
as factors that contribute to sexual aggression within relationships.
They concluded that, for women in relationships, experiencing past abuse,
low self-esteem, high behavioral involvement, and a high need for interpersonal
control all contribute to women inflicting sexual aggression on dating
partners. The authors argued that
much of relationship aggression is learned, reciprocal, and based, in part,
on the degree of control that one person exerts on the other in a relationship.
Therefore, we expected all forms of past abuse to predict the use of aggression
tactics in this study.

Past
Sexual Abuse. Personal experiences
with sexual aggression are likely to produce aggression (Gwartney-Gibbs,
et. al., 1987). The experiential
factor of past sexual abuse has been reported as predictive of sexual aggression
in several past studies of women (Anderson, 1990, 1996, 1998; Higgs, Canavan,
& Meyer, 1992). Therefore, we
expected past sexual abuse to predict the use of aggression tactics in
this study.

Purpose

While
research has established the prevalence of a variety of initiatory behavior
less is known regarding the predictors of such behavior.
To further our understanding of female’s sexual behavior, the
purpose of this study was to test the ability of selected variables to
predict college women’s use of seduction and/or aggression tactics to obtain
sexual contact with a man. The hypotheses
tested were:

1. The
use of seduction tactics will be predicted by the demographic variables:
having a greater number of lifetime sexual partners, early age at first
intercourse, and older current age; and by: positive future expectations
about sex and relationships, early age at first call to a boy, calling
more different boys and making more total calls to boys during adolescence,
and having high sexual self-esteem.

2. The
use of coercion tactics will be predicted by the demographic variables:
having a greater number of lifetime sexual partners, early age at first
intercourse, and older current age; and by experiencing past sexual abuse.

3. The
use of force tactics will be predicted by the demographic variables: having
a greater number of lifetime sexual partners, early age at first intercourse,
and older current age; and by experiencing past sexual abuse.

Methodology

Participants

Respondents
were 272 women college students attending a public commuter university
of approximately 16,000 students located in a major metropolitan city in
the South. All respondents volunteered
their participation without any incentive. The
women were single (61.0%), with 20.1% married, 11.9% cohabiting, and 7.0%
divorced or separated, White (71.5%), with 16.7% Black, 5.9% Hispanic,
4.8% Asian and 1.1% Other or missing, raised in households headed by executives
or professionals (56.4%), and identified themselves as heterosexual (97%).
Their mean age was 25.9 years (SD = 7.49), mean age at first intercourse
was 16.7 years (SD = 3.82), and their mean number of lifetime sexual
partners was 6.6 (SD = 8.48).
Of the respondents, 80.3% reported experiencing some kind of past abuse
(i.e., verbal, emotional, physical or sexual) and 45.7% reported experiencing
past sexual abuse.

Procedures

Following
approval by the university’s human subjects committee, questionnaires were
distributed to volunteers in a variety of undergraduate Health and Psychology
classes. Students were asked
to complete the questionnaires in privacy away from the classroom and return
them at the following class meeting.
Three hundred and seventy five questionnaires were distributed and 272
usable questionnaires were returned for a total response rate of 72.5%.

Instrument

Demographics.
The first section, demographics, consisted of seven items (i.e., age, marital
status, socio-economic background, sexual orientation, age at first intercourse,
ethnic background, and number of lifetime sexual partners).
Age, age at first intercourse, and number of lifetime sexual partners provided
ratio data, the other variables were nominal variables.
Marital status had five response categories; single, married, divorced
(living alone), separated (living alone), and cohabiting. Primary sexual
orientation included responses for heterosexual, lesbian, bisexual, and
gay and socio-economic background included ten response categories of occupations
for the primary wage earner in the respondent’s family of origin (e.g.,
executive, laborer, clerical).

Future
Expectations about Sex and Relationships.
The second section, future expectations about sex and relationships, consisted
of six items (e.g., do you expect to be monogamous, happily married, sexually
satisfied), scored on a 7-point Likert-type scale with 1 being extremely
unlikely and 7 being extremely likely.
A scale mean was calculated to create an index of future expectations about
sex and relationships. The calculated
Cronbach’s Alpha (Cronbach, 1972) coefficient of reliability (.88) indicated
adequate internal consistency.

Calling
patterns. The third section,
adolescent telephone calling patterns, consisted of eight items and included
three questions analyzed in this study (i.e., age at first call to a boy,
the number of different boys called in a week between the ages of 8 - 18,
and the total number of calls made per week between the ages of 8 -18)
(Anderson, et al., 1995). The scores
were summed to provide a single score.
The calculated Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient of reliability (.73) indicated
adequate internal consistency. This component assessed the extent to which
young women rehearsed behaviors related to initiating contact with men.

Self-esteem.
The fourth section, sexual self-esteem, consisted of five items (e.g.,
I am confident about myself as a sexual person, I am better at sex than
most other people) that comprise the sexual self-esteem subscale of The
Multidimensional Sexuality Questionnaire (MSQ; 61 items; Snell, et. al.,
1993). Item responses were on a
5-point Likert-type scale with 1 being not at all characteristic of me
and 5 being very characteristic of me.
Respondents completed the entire MSQ, but only the self-esteem subscale
was analyzed for this study. The five items were summed to create a scale
score. In previous work, the MSQ
was reported to possess good internal reliability (alpha levels ranging
from .71 to .94, self-esteem subscale = .87), test-retest reliability (range
.50 to .86, self-esteem subscale = .85), and concurrent validity using
the Sexuality Scale (Snell & Papini, 1989) as a comparison (self-esteem
subscale r = .72, p<. 001)(Snell, et al., 1993).
The calculated coefficient alpha for the self-esteem subscale for the present
sample was an adequate .87.

Past
abuse. The fifth section, a past
abuse scale, consisted of five items that assessed past nonsexual (i.e.,
verbal, emotional, and physical abuse) and sexual abuse (with or without
intercourse) (Anderson, 1996).
Respondents wrote a number in response to questions posed in the format
of “How many times have you experienced ... abuse?”
Scores were summed to create global measures of sexual and non-sexual abuse.
The calculated coefficient alpha for the present sample was an adequate
.65.

Initiation
and aggression. The sixth section
used the Heterosexual Contact Scale (HSC) to assess women’s use of initiation
tactics (i.e., seduction, coercion, and force).
The 45-item scale used in this study was a new version of past questionnaires,
“The Initiating Heterosexual Contact Scale” (Anderson, & Newton,
1997) and “The Sexually Assertive
Behavior Scale” (Anderson,
1998). Respondents wrote a number
in response to questions posed in the format of “How many times have you
attempted to have sexual contact with a man ...?”
The responses produced lifetime cumulative scores that ranged from 0 to
90. To produce percents, the
scores were dichotomized with all scores of 1 or more considered as a positive
answer to using this strategy. In
the regression analysis, mean scores based on the raw data were used in
all calculations. To create a model
that best represents the 3 component characterization of sexual behaviors
used in this study, the 45-item HSC was divided into 3 categories. The
first category was comprised of five items that appraised the use of seduction
tactics (e.g., by dancing or moving seductively, by giving him a massage)
(Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient of reliability = .84).
The second category was comprised of five items that appraised the use
of coercive tactics to obtain sexual contact (e.g., by threatening to end
your relationship, by pressuring him with verbal arguments) (Cronbach’s
Alpha coefficient of reliability = .66).
The third category was comprised of six items (Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient
of reliability = .90) and appraised the threat or use of physical force
tactics (e.g., by holding him down, by hitting him, by using physical force).

Results

Means,
standard deviations, ranges and percent scores are reported in Table 1.
The results describe a population of women who are older than typical college
women (M = 25.89 years), started calling boys (mean number of boys called
= 9.63) when they were about 13 years old (M = 12.95 years), have been
sexually active for almost ten years (mean age at 1st intercourse
= 16.68 years) and have had an average of approximately 7 sexual partners
(M = 6.59). These women have also
experienced significant abuse in their lives, with 75.4% reporting either
physical or emotional abuse, and 45.7% reporting past sexual abuse.Almost
all (92.3%) used seduction tactics to initiate sex with a man, 25.5% used
coercive tactics, and 10.3% reported the use of force tactics to obtain
sexual contact with a man.

Due
to the exploratory nature of the present study, a stepwise method multiple
regression was performed to predict the three dimensions of initiation. Stepwise
regression bases the order of variable entry on statistical rather than
theoretical criteria. All computations
were completed using the desktop version of the Statistical Package for
the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 9.0.

Hypothesis
one, stating that use of seduction tactics would be predicted by early
age at first call to a boy, making more calls to boys during adolescence,
calling more different boys during adolescence, high sexual self-esteem,
positive future expectations about sex and relationships, greater number
of lifetime sexual partners, early age at first intercourse, and older
current age was partially supported. In
support of the hypothesis, older current age, higher sexual self-esteem,
making more total calls per week during adolescence, and making more total
calls to boys (see Table 2) predicted use of seduction tactics.
A total of 25% of the response variation in the use of seduction tactics
was accounted for by these variables.The
predictive relationships hypothesized between early age at first call,
having a greater number of lifetime sexual partners, early age at first
intercourse and future expectations about sex and relationships were not
supported.

Hypothesis
two, that the use of coercion tactics would be predicted by the demographic
variables: having a greater number of lifetime sexual partners, early age
at first intercourse, and older current age; and by experiencing past abuse
and experiencing past sexual abuse was partially supported.
The largest predictor was having a greater number of lifetime sexual partners,
which accounted for 13% of the response variance.
Early age at first intercourse also contributed significantly to the prediction
of the use of coercive tactics and accounted for an additional 3% of the
response variance.

Hypothesis
three, that the use of force tactics would be predicted by the demographic
variables: having a greater number of lifetime sexual partners, early age
at first intercourse, and older current age; and by experiencing past abuse
and experiencing past sexual abuse was not supported.
Only early age at first intercourse was related to the use of force tactics
to establish sexual contact and explained only 2% of the response variance.

Discussion

The
purpose of this study was to test the ability of selected variables to
predict college women’s use of seduction, coercion, and force tactics.
Two of the three hypotheses were partially supported.
Previously untested relationships between adolescent calling patterns and
initiation tactics were found. Two
variables that have been linked to women’s antisocial behaviors (e.g.,
abuse of others, problems with the law), namely the number of lifetime
sexual partners (Paul, McManus, & Hayes, 2000) and early age at first
intercourse (Woody, Russel, D’Souza, & Woody, 2000), also demonstrated
predictive ability related to the use of coercion and force tactics.
Previous findings (Anderson,
1996) documenting the relationships between past abuse (whether sexual
or not) and using aggressive tactics were not supported for this sample
of respondents.

Sexual
Seduction

The
MSQ sexual self-esteem sub-scale and two rehearsal behaviors related to
telephone calling during adolescence were useful in predicting the use
of seduction tactics among this sample of respondents.
The social learning concept of self-efficacy may be an effective way to
explain these relationships. Social learning theorists believe that humans
learn behavior through social interaction, even in the absence of a reward
(Hogben & Byrne, 1998). More
specifically, Bandura (1977a) concluded that enhanced self-efficacy
(i.e., the belief that you can perform a given behavior successfully) leads
to increases in the frequency of a behavior.
Thus rehearsing a behavior should produce enhanced situational self-efficacy
and the likelihood to engage in that behavior, or a similar behavior, at
a later time.

For
this study, two measures related to self-efficacy were tested.Sexual
self-esteem, “... the dispositional tendency to evaluate positively one’s
capacity to relate sexually to others” (p. 34) as measured by the Multidimensional
Sexuality Questionnaire (Snell, et al., 1993) and three rehearsal behaviors
related to calling boys during adolescence were tested as predictors of
college women’s use of the initiation strategy of seduction.
Sexual self-esteem has been positively correlated to greater sexual awareness,
an approach to relationships that involves mutual concern and caring, a
more varied history of sexual behavior, and having a more committed and
restrictive orientation to sexual relationships (Snell, et al., 1993).
Other measures of self-efficacy and tests of additional behaviors that
could be considered rehearsal behaviors may become important variables
in our evolving understanding of women’s heterosexual initiation.

Sexual
Coercion

Earlier
age at first intercourse and higher number of lifetime sexual partners
were predictive of women’s use of coercion tactics. Two components of social
learning theory may be used to support these results.
Social learning theorists suggest that life experiences influence learning
(Mischel, Ebbesen, & Zeiss, 1973).
Bandura classified behavior, in the social learning view, as a process
of reciprocal determinism between personal and environmental
factors that include expectancies, modeling, and reinforcement (Bandura,
1977b). Reflective thought and acquired
competencies are also portions of the reciprocal process of learned
behavior (Bandura, 1977a; Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1961). In this study,
age at first intercourse and number of lifetime sexual partners could be
conceptualized as measures of sexual experiences that allow for acquired
competencies. It is plausible that
women with more sexual partners have had more opportunities to engage in
coercive tactics as experimentation, as part of a particular relationship,
as part of a generalized behavioral pattern with men, or that they have
learned this specific aggressive strategy to satisfy their sexual needs
or curiosity and therefore, report using this strategy more.
Previously reported relationships between past abuse and the use of coercive
tactics were not substantiated in this study.
These past studies have explained small amounts of the variance (4-7%)
intheir
populations (Anderson, 1996, 1990) and the lack of substantiation here
is not surprising.

Other
researchers have concluded that women who were abused in the past and become
abusers are those who shifted roles from the victim to the aggressor (Higgs,
et al., 1992). Perhaps most women who are victims either remain victims
or, with significant personal work and help, become well adjusted in their
adult sexual relationships. Obviously
the use of coercive tactics among women is not well understood.
Acquired competencies offer limited explanation. Hopefully,
other rehearsal behaviors, other components of reciprocal determination,
or other theoretical approaches can offer more insight into this component
of women’s sexual behavior in the future.

Sexual
Force

The
use of physical force tactics was weakly predicted by age at first intercourse.
This may also represent an acquired competency.
The use of physical force tactics is an unusual behavior in women; only
12% of the respondents reported ever using any type of force strategy while
43% reported using a coercion strategy and 92% reported using a seduction
strategy to initiate sex. The rarity
of force resulted in a very small sample for the examination of this relationship.
With a larger sample, the tenants of social learning theory may be more
reliably examined. As with the use
of coercive tactics, other theoretical concepts, lifestyle issues, demographics,
attitudes, and experiences need to be added to the exploration of the use
of force tactics.

Conclusions

Several
previously untested relationships demonstrated statistical significance
in this study. The practical meaning
of the results must be interpreted with caution due to the limits of the
study in the sampling methods, research tool(s) used, specificity of connections
between the theoretical concepts tested and the measurements used to test
them, statistical methodology, and the explanatory power of the questions
that might have been asked and were not.
The results of this study can, with caution, be used to generalize beyond
this population to college women, but not to other groups.
These results also reflect the complexity of women’s sexual behaviors and
motivations. Despite ten years of
regular research in this area, we are just beginning to scratch the surface
of understanding women’s initiation of sexual contact with men.

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